A typical electrical connector which is adapted for mounting on a printed circuit board includes a dielectric housing having a plurality of terminal-receiving passages, with a plurality of terminals received in the passages. Each terminal includes a contact beam section in the housing, a solder tail section projecting from the housing and a retention section between the contact beam section and the solder tail section.
Such circuit board mounted electrical connectors often include "standoffs" projecting from the housing toward the printed circuit board to space the housing from the board. This spacing facilitates cleaning the housing, such as with wash-through processes, which remove flux and other contaminants after the solder tails of the terminals have been soldered to circuit traces on the printed circuit board.
With the ever-increasing miniaturization of electronic circuitry, there is a continuing demand for low-profile electrical connectors, i.e., connectors which extend a minimal distance away from the circuit board yet still require relatively low insertion forces and have a high density of terminals. This demand causes problems, because there always are dimensional limitations in designing any particular connector. For instance, the contact beam sections of the terminals rarely can be changed because the connector is designed for particular performance characteristics. The retention sections of the terminals must be sufficiently large to properly retain the terminals within the connector housing. And, the standoffs must provide adequate space between the housing and the circuit board to allow for proper cleaning. These restrictions create quite a dilemma. Nevertheless, the present invention is directed to a unique terminal retention system for solving these problems and reducing the "height" of an electrical connector, even within the constraints defined above.